On The Road To Mac OS X

Hai Feng Zhang, Hai Feng Zhang, Development Manager of Lotus Symphony Install  |  Oct 14, 2008 9:46 PM
Profile image for Hai Feng Zhang Undoubtedly, the most frequently asked request in the forum is when is Symphony going to support Mac OS X ? Just search with the keyword "Mac OS X" in the Support forum .... you will find more than 50 postings on the subject, some of them dated back to last September when the first Lotus Symphony Beta version, Beta 1, was released.

As the development manager who is responsible for porting Lotus Symphony to this platform, I observe with some pride the team's solid progress we have made since last year in order to release public version of Lotus Symphony on Mac. As a MacBookPro user, I am just as eager as you are to see Symphony on Mac.

Let me assure you that the team is very hard at work on answering this request and delivering Symphony on Mac. Please be patient a just a little longer, we need time to guarantee the product we deliver meets your expectations and our quality threshold. Right now, we are paying close attention to its stability as Lotus Symphony runs in single process on the Mac.

Single process? Well, what that means is Symphony on Mac is different from Symphony on Windows and Linux where there are two processes which talk in UNO language -- one is Java process and the other back-end native process in C++. On the Mac platform, it's impossible to embed main window of back-end native process into the window of Java process by setting the former as child window of the latter (commonly referred to as window reparenting), the window reparenting has to be done in single process. Actually it's the first technical challenge that we must address last year when we started this porting.

Aqua, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqua_GUI, is the system theme that helps define one consistent user interface for all applications developed for Mac OS. In order to make Lotus Symphony behave like other Mac applications, we focus on Native Look & Feel enhancement, drawing common controls' appearance in Aqua style and supporting more Mac behaviors like activating and deactivating window, theme change and etc.

I guess that was a long way of saying that this porting task is far beyond the single process and Native Look & Feel enhancement. Anyway, it is a challenging but enjoyable journey, please stay tuned. Soon, we hope to deliver Lotus Symphony on Mac.

17 Comments

  • Frank said on Oct 14, 2008 10:16 PM:

    That's definitely a good news! pretty cool Symphony on Mac...

  • Dave said on Oct 14, 2008 11:10 PM:

    Oddly enough, this little write up didn't even state an estimated release date. As stated already by a Manager in the forums, Symphony for the Mac is expected early November as a beta and final release early 2009.

  • Ben Poole said on Oct 15, 2008 7:23 AM:

    What version of OpenOffice will this be based on? I believe the current version is 1.1.4 -- will this be boosted to something more current soon do you know? Or, at least, does the current architecture of the Symphony client allow for future OO upgrades relatively easily?

  • aX said on Oct 15, 2008 5:13 PM:

    It's time to say HOORAY :) I'm eager to get it.

  • Ter Meenal said on Oct 16, 2008 6:43 AM:

    Thanks for posting this. A large part of marketing involves keeping some form of communication open and up dated on a regular basis.

    Considering that Lotus Symphony is targeted at M$ Office users it becomes very important to keep development information current so that companies that are considering switching will be able to make some decisions.

    This is the first informative post on the status of the Mac OSX port that I've seen. Keep it up.

    Thanks again

    Ter

  • Wil said on Oct 17, 2008 5:27 AM:

    OpenOffice 3 was just released with native Mac support. i dont get why you would want to wait for something based on a code base that is years old and obviously took forever to port. How long before they catch up with the new features such as docx support?

  • pvmstg said on Oct 17, 2008 7:46 AM:

    Answer in short "CHOICE" for me it will still oo until symphony can deliver more than oo. But, if IBM included a better database than the one in oo... "Approach like" be sure I'm switching...

    So more program to choose from is better... Wait and see if symphony on mac will deliver less or more than oo to justify leaving a robust more than 5 years use on oo (neooo).

  • Oliversl said on Oct 18, 2008 8:32 PM:

    Thanks for posting about the mac version, since as you said, the forums is full this kind of questions.

    I readed that in November we can have a beta and the GA release in early 2009.

    Keep up the good work, Regards,

    Oliver

    http://tinymailto.com/oliversl <-- my email after a captcha

  • David Ing said on Oct 19, 2008 11:50 AM:

    Thanks for explaining the technical challenges of porting to Mac.

    In my mind (and maybe the minds of others at less than guru technical level), I would have presumed that since Mac OS is based on Unix, and Linux is a variant of Linux, that the port would have been relatively straightforward.

    Sure, I would have presumed work associated with look and feel with Aqua. On my wife's Mac, I've run enough X11 applications to see that look-and-feel for Unix-ported applications is probably okay for techies, but the average Mac user who is interested in a refined interface is likely to be dissatisfied.

    The mixture of C++ and Java to create a single application is new, to me, though. Two processes versus a single process is really tech!

  • jo said on Oct 20, 2008 12:49 PM:

    i have been waiting for this release? i'm a little bit disapointed, since there is OO 3 (aqua) and Neo Office, So what makes symphony better then the original? What could make it worthwile is DB2 on mac .... (universal version please)

  • oj said on Oct 20, 2008 1:07 PM:

    Will there be a ppc version? Please do not forget us...

  • shades said on Oct 21, 2008 7:55 PM:

    Thanks for the update. I am in favor of having several options. I no longer have MS Office on my MBP, using NeoOffice/OpenOffice for general cross-platform files.

  • kamal said on Oct 25, 2008 4:59 AM:

    Would Love to get an tentative date.

  • Guest said on Oct 27, 2008 4:28 AM:

    good

  • Abiola said on Oct 28, 2008 1:49 PM:

    Good...

    It'll be good if it's based on OOo 3 instead of 1.X

  • Guest said on Oct 29, 2008 7:30 PM:

    Lotus Symphony 1.2 coming November 5th, with Mac support!

    Link: http://www.johndavidhead.com/jhead/johnhead.nsf/dx/lotus-symphony-1.2-coming-november-5th-with-mac-support

    "So Eric Otchet just told the Design Partners that Lotus Symphony 1.2 will be shipping on November 5th, 2008 and will include the first Mac build! It will be English only for 1.2 and it will have a 'beta' tag attached. The gold release will be in the first quarter of 2009 and we can expect Symphony to be bundled with the Notes client around that time as well.

    More news about 1.2 coming soon! "

  • Dean said on Nov 6, 2008 11:44 AM:

    Good but its for Intel OSX. Any chance to see PPC version? Thank you in advance,

    Dean
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